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By Max Jedeur-Palmgren and Ryan Mac

Playing video games can make you money and, as Markus “Notch” Persson has found out, it can make you a billionaire. The 35-year-old creator of popular video game “Minecraft” and cofounder of gaming company Mojang is now part of the 10-figure fortune club after recent reports suggest that the Swedish gaming company is in talks to sell to for $2 billion.

According to a story from the Wall Street Journal, Persson is in the process of negotiating that sale with the American software giant in a deal that could be finalized by the end of September. Based on private valuations of Mojang of which Persson is a majority shareholder, FORBES estimates that the Swedish software developer is the world’s newest gaming billionaire.

Stockholm-based Mojang and Persson did not respond to requests for comment.

More commonly known in the gaming world by his handle “Notch,” Persson began his career as a software developer and spent four years at Candy Crush creator before leaving to start his own venture. According to postings on Reddit, Persson says he grew up in a “relatively poor family” and only began to make a stable living when he turned his passions for programming and playing video games into a real job. He developed “Minecraft” and released it as a demo in 2009, before going on to found Mojang in 2010 with Jakob Porsér and CEO Carl Manneh.

“Once I got a decent job, I never really had to worry about money,” wrote Persson on Reddit last year. “Now, all of the sudden, as a result of how modern society works, I managed to somehow earn a shit-ton of money.”

A game with bulky block-like graphics where players wander and build virtual cities in a never-ending universe, “Minecraft” has been Mojang’s main driver of revenue and success. Since its inception, “Minecraft” has sold more than 54 million copies across all platforms and is consistently among the top-10 grossing games across Apple, Google and Amazon’s online app stores. Mojang charges $27 to download the game on a PC, $20 on gaming consoles like Xbox 360 and $7 on mobile. Warner Bros. has also obtained the rights from Mojang to make a movie based on “Minecraft.”

Swedish tax documents from April that were obtained by FORBES show that Mojang, which restructured ownership stakes earlier this year, is wholly-owned by a Swedish entity known as Notch Development. Persson controls 71% of Notch Development through Notch Enterprises AB, according to the documents. Porsér owns 21% while CEO Manneh controls 8%.

At a $2 billion purchase price, Persson would receive more than $1.4 billion before taxes if the deal was paid in all cash. That money would come in addition to payments from Mojang to license the “Minecraft” title he created. In the past, the company’s disclosed that it paid entities affiliated with Persson more than $100 million per year in 2012 and 2013 for licensing fees. According to Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, Microsoft would presumably be acquiring both Mojang and the rights to “Minecraft” from Persson in the potential deal.

“The value lies in ‘Minecraft’ not Mojang and Microsoft knows this,” he said. “It's an awful lot of money, but it's not ridiculous. Microsoft clearly thinks ‘Minecraft’ will have a long life as a franchise, and if that is true an acquisition like this does makes sense.”

Buoyed by the rampant success of “Minecraft” Mojang has been highly profitable since its founding four years ago. In 2013, the 35-employee company reported $288 million in revenues, with $115 million in earnings. The largest operating expense came in the form of compensating Persson for the licensing fees to “Minecraft.”

Even if the company's reported deal with Microsoft does not transpire, FORBES estimates that Mojang, packaged with the rights to license "Minecraft," would still be worth at least $2 billion--and Persson would still be a billionaire. In calculating a valuation for Mojang, FORBES applied discounted price-to-earnings multiples of comparable publicly-traded companies like Activision and Electronic Arts to Mojang's 2013 earnings.

At his company’s presumed $2 billion valuation, Persson joins the likes of Zynga cofounder Mark Pincus and Valve cofounder Gabe Newell as gaming billionaires. He is also, at the age of 35, one of the world’s youngest members of the 10-figure fortune club.

Anyone want to buy my share of Mojang so I can move on with my life? Getting hate for trying to do the right thing is not my gig.

A full-figured, bearded Swede, Persson is known for his open personality that has garnered him plenty of followers in the gaming community. He grew up outside of Stockholm, the son of a nurse, who divorced her husband when her son was 12. Persson’s dad struggled with drug addiction and had stints in prison.

Growing up as a hacker and gamer, Persson has said online that success hasn’t changed him much and that he spends a great deal of his money on computer gear and traveling. In 2013, he gave more than $3 million in company dividends to employees. Persson also has used some of his profits to buy Stockholm’s most expensive apartment ever in June, and last year treated Mojang’s workers to a luxury-packed party weekend in Monte Carlo.

“I think the right way to use money like this is to set a decent portion aside to make sure my family is comfortable, spend some on living out your dreams, and then try to put the rest towards making society a better place,” the “Minecraft” creator wrote on Reddit. “For me, this includes charities that help children, and charities that help promote freedoms I think are vital in the coming dozens of years, such as the [Electronic Frontier Foundation.]”

Recently Persson had voiced frustrations in running Mojang. In June he took to twitter to address fans who were unhappy with changes in Minecraft’s user agreement.

“Anyone want to buy my share of Mojang so I can move on with my life?” he wrote to his more than 1.7 million followers on Twitter. “Getting hate for trying to do the right thing is not my gig.”

Some of those followers took to the social media microblog to ask the Mojang cofounder about the Microsoft acquisition rumors. Notch, who may be getting his wish, has remained silent on any potential deal.